An equity and environmental justice assessment of anti-science actions during the Trump administration

Abstract

In the United States, science shapes federal health and safety protections, but political officials can and do politicize federal science and science-based safeguards. Many presidential administrations have politicized science, but under the administration of President Trump, these attacks on science—such as buried research, censored scientists, halted data collection—increased in number to unprecedented levels. Underserved communities bore the brunt of the harms. Such attacks disproportionately harm Black, Indigenous, low-income communities, and communities of color, all of whom have long been burdened by pollution exposure and other stressors. We analyze the effects on underserved communities of the Trump administration’s anti-science environmental and public health policy actions and offer policy recommendations for current and future administrations. Our goal is to strengthen scientific integrity, prioritize health disparity research, and meaningfully engage affected communities in federal rulemaking.

What motivates people to defend science: Evidence from the 2017 March for science

“…The March was a response to a perceived threat to science by the Trump Administration. Almost immediately after the Trump administration gained power, warning bells began sounding in the scientific community and beyond, including concern about scientific budget cuts [31], scientific censorship [32,33] and removal of scientific information from the policy making process [34]. The EPPM posits that perceptions of the threat motivate action, not the threat itself [19].…”